Cognition is a group of mental processes that includes attention, memory, producing and understanding language, problem solving, and decision making Memory is the process by which information is encoded, stored and retrieved. Working memory is the ability to mentally operate on immediately available information while persisting this information for later potential encoding into long term memory. A considerable body of neuroscience research relates working memory capacity to other cognitive abilities such as fluid intelligence. Individuals with strong working memory capacities are more likely to succeed in education and professional environments. Enhancing this capacity is highly desirable.
There have been a number of attempts to develop programs to enhance working memory capacity. For example, Cogmed Inc. has developed several variants of working memory training aimed at enhancing cognition in children with a particular focus on reducing the burden of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Jaeggi and colleagues have shown that training on a challenging working memory task—called the dual n-back—improves users' performance on measures of fluid intelligence. See, Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Perrig, W. J. (2008). Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(19), 6829-6833. doi:10.1073/pnas.0801268105. These promising approaches demonstrate the appeal of working memory training; however, these approaches have limitations. In particular, most of these tasks do not require substantial mental manipulation of the to-be-remembered items. This can lead to reliance on domain-specific short term working memory systems, as opposed to the domain-general executive working memory systems. The operations of domain-general memory systems are associated with transfer of training to fluid intelligence and broadly to other kinds of tasks that require working memory and control of attention. See, Kane, M., & Engle, R. (2002). The role of prefrontal cortex in working-memory capacity, executive attention, and general fluid intelligence: An individual-differences perspective. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 637-671. doi:10.3758/BF03196323. Exercising these systems in a targeted fashion requires mental manipulation of the items in memory, not just maintenance.
Researchers have used complex working memory tasks to measure and train the domain-general memory capacity. See, Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19(4), 450-466. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(80)90312-6; and Turner, M. L., & Engle, R. W. (1989). Is working memory capacity task dependent? Journal of Memory and Language, 28(2), 127-154. doi:10.1016/0749-596X(89)90040-5. However, these tasks typically involve separate items for retrieval and processing (e.g., solve a math problem while remembering an unrelated number or remembering the locations of objects in the order of the numbers printed on them). These designs lack ecological validity, in that most real world tasks involving memory and control of attention involve operating on the same items that are to be remembered. For example, when an individual is making a decision about the best way to travel from point A to point B, they must pull information into working memory such as the various possible routes, the impact of traffic, public transit delays, and if the routes are walkable and operate on those representations to decide on the optimal approach. Organic uses of complex working memory like this activate prefrontal cortex in a robust and ecologically relevant manner. These uses also have the advantage of being relatively easy tasks to understand, unlike the unnatural operations in most complex working memory tasks.
What is needed are cognitive training exercises that train working memory systems in an intuitive, engaging, and adaptively challenging way to enhance cognition.